Charting Filinvest’s new ESG journey with reporting

Under increased pressure from regulation, Filinvest sought guidance from The Purpose Business to release their first sustainability report for their holding company (Filinvest Development Corporation) as well as their real estate (Filinvest Land Inc.) and banking (East West Banking Corporation) subsidiaries.

Challenge

Filinvest Development Corporation (FDC) stands to be one of the most well-recognised conglomerates in the Philippines. Tracing its roots since 1955, Filinvest has far reaching businesses around the country in three major sectors – real estate, banking and power. Its recent investments include infrastructure and environmentally sustainable businesses such as solar power and district cooling.

In 2019, the Philippines’ Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released new guidelines that all publicly listed companies must disclose non-financial information on their approach to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. With this regulatory change, Filinvest sought assistance to chart unfamiliar territory in preparing sustainability reports for three of their public companies in 2019: Filinvest Development Corporation (FDC), Filinvest Land Inc (FLI) and East West Banking Corporation (EW).

Solution

The Purpose Business started working with their internal team to better understand the activities and dynamics of the business in order to properly scope the content of the individual reports. From there, we facilitated the data collection process with the three entities in line with the SEC’s key performance indicators.

It was critical to create buy-in from top management for the reporting process and build the case for sustainability. We conducted a workshop for Filinvest’s senior leadership to demonstrate how proactively managing their environmental and social impacts can futureproof long-term growth and improve daily operations. We provided insight on local and international drivers, shared case studies of responsible businesses to stretch their ambitions and discussed the value of reporting as a steppingstone to better ESG integration.

Impact

Although the project timeline coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic causing some challenges with data collection, we were able to adapt by helping FDC, FLI, and EW to focus on developing their unique sustainability stories. The internal team better understood the reporting process and how to streamline their data collection systems for the next reporting cycle. Filinvest now has a clearer vision of which metrics to track as well as a better idea on how they can use these metrics to manage their ESG impacts.